Tech Trends 2011: Business & IT Converge

The next 18 months will be pivotal for widespread adoption of technologies.

Ten “re-emerging enablers” and “disruptive deployments” will play a crucial role in how businesses operate over the next 18 months, according to a report by Deloitte.

“Tech Trends 2011: The Natural Convergence of Business and IT” outlines five technologies many chief information officers (CIO) have embraced in the past (re-emerging enablers) and five “disruptive deployments” that showcase new business models and transformative ways to operate.

The re-emerging enablers:

1. Almost-enterprise applications

Quick and agile solutions like the cloud and software- and platform-as-a-service (SaaS, PaaS) appeal to the business end. But are they “enterprise enough” for information technology (IT)?

Many business leaders embrace such “almost-enterprise” applications, and CIOs should get in front of this democratization and self-service trend.

2. CIOs as revolutionaries

With the cloud, social computing, and mobility shaking up business models and transforming how business is done, the technology agenda should be considered as tantamount to the business agenda—and CIOs are the executives positioned to pull them into alignment.

3. Cyber intelligence

While it still may be necessary to build a rapid detect-and-respond cyber security function, organizations should consider going beyond adding tools to learn and adapt, protect against upstream threats, and connect the internal and external dots to assess probable risks.

In the process, they’ll move from reactive to proactive.

4. ERP abides

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be an enabler of tomorrow’s innovations, not a fading footnote of yesterday’s legacy.

Organizations are still able to tap ERP applications to transform processes with reduced risk—at a lower cost and at a quicker pace.

5. Visualization

Visualization deserves a fresh look given the evolution of the underlying tools and the rich potential represented by unstructured data.

It can provide a new way to tap into millions of internal e-mails, instant messages, and documents, as well as trillions of social media objects, tweets, text messages, blogs, and other content of potential concern or opportunity.

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